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31 Days Of Plots: The Wild Party

To celebrate the achievements of 2019 and to welcome all the prospects of 2020, Live Design is conducting 31 Days Of Plots. Every day during the month of December 2019, we will highlight a different lighting design, from across theatre, concert tours, corporate events, and more.

Lighting designer Christina Watanabe, recipient of the 2019 KOI-USA (Knight of Illumination USA)Rosco Award for Musicals, Small Venue, won for her lighting of The Wild Party, directed by Scott Ebersold for Post Theatre Company in Brookville, NY, last fall. "The inspiration for the design was based on the descriptive imagery from Joseph Moncure March's poem on which Andrew Lippa based his musical," says Watanabe. "Low angles of lighting grow shadows deeper as the night progresses. Bright colors and bold cueing pulls from Vaudeville's vocabulary. The full stage ceiling became a canvas for reflecting light back on to the performers. All of these elements worked together to convey the growing tension and danger as the night progresses until the harsh daylight breaks through and the party draws to a close." Click through the slideshow to view the plots.

"Gorgeous color, smart cueing," says KOI-USA Theatre judge Clifton Taylor, himself a KOI-winning LD, about Watanabe's lighting. "The design feels like the deconstruction of a musical and in this reconsideration, a new and vital shape is brought forth.”